Elfen Tränen
by One Sided Pancake
Summary: Lilith is an unfortunate but kind-hearted Diclonius with a single goal in life: To prove that not all Diclonius are bloodthirsty killing machines by acts of kindness. She begins to discover that society, however, will not be convinced so easily.
1. Der Prolog

_**Author's Note -** This FanFiction was first written in April, 2009 by me. It was published, and a couple of months later, I gave up on it and started writing more FanFictions under different categories and genres. Since then, I have improved my writing technique and style, and therefore, I am completely remodifying this story to better live up to my new writing standards. Therefore, this is a completely re-written, newly revised version of Chapter One. I will go through each and every chapter, making changes of all sorts to descriptions, etc... The revised date underneath the Chapter title means it is edited severely since it was originally posted. Those that don't have revised on (date), are not yet edited._

_If you have already read this chapter **before** I edited it, I advise you read it again, as it has much more meaning to it now.  
I added almost 3,000 more words. o_o_

_Please do enjoy;  
One-Sided Pancake_

**

* * *

Elfen Tränen**

_- Der Prolog / The Prologue_**_ -  
_**(Revised on August 30th, 2009)

**

* * *

**A young surgeon specializing in childbirth paces the white floors of his office anxiously as he considers how he is going to break the bad news to the new parents. He was a new doctor, having only graduated and applying at this hospital a few years ago. In those few years, he has helped hopeful mothers deliver many children of all situations and backgrounds. In all these years of doctoring, however, he has never been faced with a situation that he has had a loss of words such as now.

How would he break the news, that could potentially throw these patients into an incurable depression?

They were a happy couple; young and expecting to marry in the next ten months, after the mother recovers from birth. At the prime of their lives, the birth of their first child would be one of their greatest milestones. Although they came from a family of very few members, they were friendly and outgoing to all those who they would meet. If anyone deserved the best of the world, they were the ones.

Now, sitting in the Recovery room, the couple awaiting news upon their newborn daughter.

* * *

_Nearly every couple that walks into the delivery room leaves knowing that their beautiful child has been brought to their earth from the skies of heaven, to eternally live together. It's natural that the desire to raise a happy and prosperous child is the one dream that parents share alike at heart. It's human nature... No. It is the nature of all living things._

_But then again, not everything goes according to plan._

_Sometimes, the heavens offer you a child of different circumstances;  
A gentle and calm child who needs unconditional love and attention, like any other child._

_Yes, there were plenty of these special children._

_Hundreds of them, in fact.  
Hundreds of disadvantaged children, deserving of love._

_But what of the vile Diclonious?_

_The terrifying monsters who were born to kill, without knowing the love of a mother or father?  
Is this race meant to be unloved and tormented, by nature itself?  
Have they no purpose in this life, other than to hunt and execute those who may stand in their way?_

_The helpless Diclonious children are born into this world, only to be lethalized a few hours later.  
They will never understand what it means to live, and they don't understand what it means to die, either.  
_

_The Diclonious blood that runs through the very veins of these children which is the cause of their fate;_

_It is the very blood which grants them life.  
It is the very blood which grants them death..._

_But, what of the blood which lies in between these great eternal boundaries?_

* * *

The young surgeon enters the dark and secluded waiting room and hesitates eye contact with either of the child's parents. He closes the door behind him, and intentionally sets his brown clipboard forcefully on his desk in the corner of the room. He lets out a couple fake coughs, and washes his hands two times each. He runs a hand through his medium-length, brown hair, and pushes his stylish black glasses back up the bridge of his nose with his fingers. He turns around, to face the opposing side of the room.

Looking over to the bed on the left, he sees the mother of the newborn child, resting peacefully. Her husband is right alongside her, sitting in one of the uncomfortable and overly-firm patient chairs, as he holds her left hand in his own.

_They must be cold_, the doctor distracts himself, _I'd better close the window for them._

The doctor paces to the other side of the room, walking past the two parents. He has a little trouble closing the window, so the father gets up from his seat and effortlessly shuts it for him. Once the father sits back down in his chair, the doctor decides to go and break the news. He'll just walk over to the chair, look both of the parents directly in the eyes, and--

"Hello?" A woman's voice weakly calls. "Doctor Larr... Right?" She looks like she is expecting a 'yes' or 'no' answer as confirmation.

Doctor Larr is caught by surprise. He turns around to see the new mother sitting up in her bed, eyes wide with wonder. She gives a faint smile and a weak, little wave to him.

"Uh, yes. That's right." He confirmed, nodding. He scratched the back of his head as he spoke.

The mother opened her mouth to speak again. "When can she go home?" the mother ambushed the surgeon with questions, right off the bat. "I mean...My daughter?"

Doctor Brendan Larr takes a deep breath, and stares the brown-haired mother directly in the eye, as he does so. She stares directly back into his, and Doctor Larr feels his stomach turn inside-out within him. It was the worst feeling in the world. What sad, horrible irony was the situation that he was faced in. The mother had no idea what raged through the doctors mind right now. Maybe he could get someone else to explain it to her, after all... It would be easier for him to do so. But...

_No._

_Now was the time. She had the right to know about her daughter's condition.__ But...__  
Her eyes are so hopeful and concerned. She's just given natural birth to her first child. How can he destroy her life's greatest happiness now? The father, too...__  
His eyes are so deprived and desperate. He's gotten no sleep for the past few days. Surely, he'd be the type of person to throw an outrage when the news is to be broken?  
_  
"Well," the doctor began, eyes shifting around the room, "You see..."

When the doctor doesn't respond immediately after that, the father tightens his hands' grip on his wife's hand. Something wasn't right. He could tell by the way the Doctor went around the room, doing useless things earlier. He is ready to comfort her for the worst yet to come, although he himself does not know whether he will be able to handle the answer, himself...

The regretful doctor resumes his speaking.

"She is very healthy. Her breathing is very excellent, and she is as strong as any child I've seen here in years. In fact, she scored a 'ten' on almost all of the tests we've given her to judge her health."

The parents are very enthused. "Honey, did you hear that?! It's wonderful--!!" The mother is enlightened. Finally some good news to her ears.

Her husband plants a simple kiss on her cheek. "We're very lucky, darling. Thank you, doctor. You had me a little worried ther--"

"_However..._" The doctor interrupts, the smile on his face fading, "Despite her good health..."

The parents slightly lean their heads forward, unaware of what may be the problem.  
She was healthy, right?

The doctor feels his eyes well up slightly, and he has to force the next words out. "...She will not be going home."

* * *

The mother's eyes had widened in great fear. Her jaw nearly fell, and she fell backwards onto the bed in exhaustion. The father squeezed her hands to comfort her, but his face also drew the similar expression of his wife's. The hospital almost never kept an infant unless there was something wrong with it. The mother shakes her head, over and over on the pillow. She won't believe a word of it. Not a single one. Surely, this doctor was lying!

"No, no... She...won't being going home _soon..._?" She frowned greatly. "Then... When _will_ she be able to come home...?" the mother asked, crestfallen.

The parents wanted their daughter home as soon as possible; they already had a nice room gathered up at their house. Pink crib, pink clothes, pink bedroom wall... Everything. Some long-distance relatives sent in baby gifts such as pacifiers, bibs, spoons, dolls... The baby was spoiled before she was even born, the lucky little thing.

The doctor had to clear a non-existent lump in his throat as he fishes for the cruel, lost words in his mind.  
Finally, he catches a hold of the only thing that he has left to say.

"She will not being going home. Not today, not next week, not the week after that... I'm sorry. She--" The doctor is interrupted by the smashing of a fist against a desk. The father arises from his chair, aggravated. His look is not the least bit pleased, his eyes filled with rage and fury.

"Tell, me again, _doctor_; what is it then, if my daughter is perfectly beautiful and healthy, that is preventing me and my wife from seeing our newborn daughter on her first day alive!? We haven't even been able to see her face! Unless you bring our daughter to this very room _right now_, I will have to demand _immediately_ to speak to a higher authority this instant!"

The father had his fists in an aggressive state by his sides. His face was turning red with anger. The doctor took a couple steps back, sweat rolling down his forehead.

"Uh-- Hey... It's not my fault, it was an order that--"

"Let me see my child." he demands in a quiet but aggravated voice. He is trying to keep his calm. Doctor Larr is rather glad that he was, as he knew that if he hadn't had been calm right now, he probably would be starting a fist fight, right here, right now.

The doctor, with no other option in question, sighs as he beckons the crestfallen couple to the door. The angry father strides over to the stretcher that his wife has been recovering on since the pregnancy's final stages. "Look, dear... We're going to go see Charlotte." He gently says in his wife's ear.

"Charlotte?" The doctor asks, trying to take the father's mind off of his anger, "Is that the name you picked for her? It's beautif--"

"Yes, it is. Now, where is she?" The father doesn't seem to have calmed his defenses down to Doctor Larr in the slightest.

"Uh... Right this way..." The doctor holds the door open enough for the man to push the stretcher through. Once the couple exits through the door, Doctor Larr follows after them, shutting the door behind him.

* * *

The old, metal, hospital stretcher has a whining and creaky wheel, and that very wheel is the only noise audible when they are walking down the hall, besides the father's angry footsteps. They are loud and filled with hatred, themselves. _  
Threatening footsteps. _

No one dares to speak. Not a single word.  
Everyone's eyes are focused on the path before them as they walk the hallway that seems to be of eternity.

They walk past all the infants who had been endeared with loving names. On each child's head, there are caps. Blue hats, pink hats, striped hats, white hats. Teddy bears, stuffed toys and other welcoming gifts are placed on either side of the children; no doubt that they were from their new loving friends and family. The family couldn't wait until they could spoil their daughter, even more lovingly than _these_ babies that lie asleep here...

* * *

The three nervously continue and make their way towards a rusty metal door in the back. It looks like it is never opened very often, as dust traces the knob. A couple fingerprints lay scattered in the dust. They looked rather fresh, too.

The doctor reaches out his and opens the metal-crafted door hesitantly, holding the door open for the couple to enter before walking in himself. The door harshly shuts behind him, making a large echo throughout the halls. His eyes then gaze around this room of which he has only seen once before, and by accident, at that.

The small room is dark, cold, and secluded, very much to the contrast of the nursery room from where they just came. The tiniest of whispers would be echoed in this room with ten times the sound potential. The floor was a little dusty, and it was obvious that this room was rarely ever used. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling's corners.

The sound of an object being dropped suddenly averted the attention of the doctor and the parents to a figure hidden slightly by musty shadows. A nurse is in the back corner of the room, surrounded by tables stacked with test tubes and syringes. She has shoulder length black hair, cut in a bob. Then again, it could be brown; it was hard to tell in this lighting. The name-tag above her right-breast pocket read her name, "_Inori_".

Inori is holding a baby in her right arm, whom was no older than a couple of hours. It was silently staring back into the nurse's eyes, with all content. The baby remains silent, as the nurse, Inori, is cleaning her arm off with a white wash-rag. She squirms a bit in the nurse's arms, but she is healthy. She has a dirty, cloth blanket over her chest and most of her head.

The father abruptly pushes the Doctor Larr out of his path and makes his way to the nurse. He stands in front of the nurse, hands held out, expecting the nurse to give him the baby. The nurse looks back to the doctor for some sort of approval, to which the doctor solemnly nods his head once after regaining his posture.

The female nurse gently hands the baby, bundled up in the old blanket, to the father's caring arms. The little infant girl begins to fuss, to which the father hushes her down with a slight "Shhhh..." while cradling her softly. "You're okay, you're okay. Daddy's got you, now, Charlotte." The baby doesn't seem to care much, but she does settle down a little.

"Let me see her..." the mother silently whispers to her fiancé from the bed. The father slowly makes his way to the mother, gently rocking the girl as not to disturb her and throw her into another fit. He slightly bends his knees, as to allow the mother to reach her newborn daughter.

Slowly, the mother reaches her frail and weak hand slightly, and lifts the dirty blanket out from its original position, revealing her daughter's facial features.

For a minute, the couple think they have lost their color detection. The father closes his eyes and reopens them, in the thought that he may be tired from staying up all night at the hospital. Was he imagining things? The father looks to his wife, and cocks his head to the side. He laughs a little, and so does she. They aren't sure why, but they found it funny. Their smiles immediately fade into widened eyes and a horrified expression. The parents stare at their child, soaking in her appearance;

_Tufts of red silky hair, in the vibrant color of crimson. Ruby red eyes, wide and alert to the world around her; not missing a single thing. Two small but clearly visible horns, deriving from her skull itself; Yes, that was right... Two small, little horns..._

**_Horns.  
_**

The mother gasps slightly and reaches her hand over the baby's horns. She lightly tugs at one, checking to make sure that it wasn't just a joke that she clearly wasn't in on. Her hand ran over the bones, examining her child's defect. A single tear falls down her face, and she begins to weep.

They were solid as stone; cold as ice.  
Attached firmly to the baby's head.

The mother and father both stared speechless into those scarlet eyes and came to the realization...

_Their beloved daughter was a Diclonious.  
_

Inori, the nurse, is silent, but she turns around and breaks the impression. "We must lethalize her right away, if we wish to regard mankind's own well-being." the nurse finally said, in a grave manner. She had been crying, evidence lying in her puffy red face and soaked shirt sleeve. As a nurse, it pained Inori to know that a child would die, no matter what the race or background.

"No... No!! You can't--!! Not to my child! She will not do any harm, none at all!! _I **promise** you!_" the mother breaks down into hysterics, clawing at her own arms, despite the fact that she was already weakened severely from the childbirth. The father does not stop her, as he holds the baby to him closely, still rocking her. He wants to cherish every moment he can spend with this child. He looks into her eyes, and they look up at him.

The mother grabs his arm to bring the baby to her once more, and they all stand there as a family, for the only hour that they will all be together. The parents both love their child, despite her differences. For nine months, this baby lived with them, even if they couldn't see her face.

* * *

_This Diclonious infant, born from the womb of a human, would be killed on the spot, regardless of her heritage._

_She did not know what life was, nor death.  
Her existence is not known to her own being, and she knows not that her existence will be taken from her.  
She does not know the difference between right or wrong, justice and crime._

_And yet, she is to die within the next hour for a crime that she did __might someday commit.  
It wasn't a certainty._

_It was a guess and a judgment based on past events.  
It was prejudiced and decided long ago._

_There was no room for the race to prove themselves otherwise._

* * *

The surgeon, feeling the utmost sympathy for this couple, feels the world spin around him. This child did nothing but simply be born; is there something that is so wrong with that? Did it truly deserve to be stung by the lethal injection that lie on the table, just feet away from where the baby lie now? The young Doctor Larr wants to help. He does not want this girl to die in spite of the Diclonious race. Human or not, it was a newborn.

_It was too soon for it to encounter death just yet.  
Too soon._

"You could..." he begins nervously. He cuts off his sentence, as he realizes how stupid his idea was.  
What he was about to suggest would get him fired and possibly executed if he was discovered.

The father and mother look up, hope in their eyes. Their tears are clearly visible, and reflect off of what little light the room had to offer.

Inori, standing in the corner of the room, also stares at Doctor Larr with great curiosity and wonder, waiting for his next words.

_Could something be done to spare this child's life?__  
...There must have been something the doctor could do._

_The doctor does not care for himself now. _  
_  
Brendan Larr had lived well; Growing up with a wealthy upbringing in America, and moving to Japan at a young age... Surrounded by many successful older siblings... Becoming Valedictorian in High School... Graduating from the greatest College wealth and smarts could buy...  
He even made it this far, becoming a doctor._

_Yes, he had life going for him very well.  
He knew what life was._

_But this baby didn't.  
She doesn't have the slightest clue._

_That is why now, Doctor Larr is willing to risk it all.  
He wants to save the fetal Diclonius._

He clears his throat and looks the parents directly in the eyes, and then down to the little baby, Charlotte.

"You could raise her in secrecy." Brendan Larr finally spurts out. "I could also...secretly visit sometime, to give her check-ups and possibly medicine." He kicks at the ground lightly with his foot, and places his hands in his back pocket. He has a nervous feeling in his stomach... And then, suddenly, he feels a sharp stinging pain to his cheek, too. A loud noise fills and echoes within the room.

There before his sight, Inori stood in front of him, her hand on Hiss cheek. She had slapped him. "You can't... You can't! You'll get caught for sure! And... It's against the law! Not only that... But we'll _both_ be fired... perhaps even _executed_ if you're discovered! I worked so hard to get this far, and now you --"

"The hospital does not know of this child's condition as a Diclonius, as of yet." The doctor pushes aside the nurse. "We could say that she has been stillborn."

The nurse doesn't like this idea, but she takes a deep breath before walking towards the door. "Do what you want. Just don't drag me in to this with you."

"Thanks, Inori..." Brendan says to the nurse as she strides out the room, shutting the door with a quickness behind her.

Back to the parents, the father shifts his head slowly to his wife, to meet her eyes.  
They share a glance for a good minute or so before the father finds his voice to speak again.

"She's right. There is no way we can ask that of you. You would get fired without a doubt. Or worse, killed, even.." he points out. He cares for his daughter, but two human, and Diclonius, lives were at stake now. The doctor tightens his grasp on his white jacket's pockets.

"...That's a risk I'm going to have to take, if only you would accept..." the doctor hesitantly vows. He is willing to make the sacrifice to save her. No child deserves an unfair death like this. She deserves the best life she can get.

The mother desperately looks up from her precious child into the father's eyes. The mother seems to be desperate to keep this baby alive.

Their child had a chance to live. A life of secrecy; a life of solitude from other children. The parents would have to raise her all by themselves, with some help from this doctor, and teach her, as well. No one could ever know that she exists. No one could ever befriend her and keep her company but themselves. Her relatives will never get to meet her, as this would have to be top-secret. Classified.

The father then cries out in agony. "Damn it!!" He breathes heavily, pounds his free hand fist against the wall, and looks at the ground blankly. He began losing control and questioned his inner-most thoughts aloud. "What if...What if, she ends up like the other Diclonius?" he asks his wife. The mother turns her face away, not wanting to think about that horrid thought right now.

The image of the infamous Diclonius named 'Lucy' creeped into her mind. The story was a sad one, that she had heard one too many times.

The father continued to question his thoughts. He loved his daughter, but he also had to think upon the behalf of society and humanity. He turned his gaze turned to his daughter.

Would it be best just to end her life now? Would a death now be better than a life of no contact or human interaction? Is she better off dead than alive?

The father sifts through the consequences in his mind.

If he allowed their daughter to be lethalized, there were so many things that she would miss out on. But then again... They could always have another child. No! Out of the question! A child cannot be replaced; a child is a child, nothing more, nothing less. But that does not mean it can be replaced a second time by a child of a more superior condition! Of course it couldn't...

It is still your child.

The father sighs, and stares into the distance for a while. His thoughts are interrupted by his wife's voice.

"Lilith." she calmly states. She is tired from the overwhelming incidents today.

"...Lilith...?" the husband parrots to himself.

"Her name. It will be Lilith." she states in a monotonous voice, staring at the ceiling, as if she is recalling something.

"But why _Lilith_, dear? I thought we had agreed on _Charlotte_... Isn't that a beautiful name? ...Dear?"

"...Yes. I'm aware... But, according to mythology... Lilith was Adam's first wife. But they constantly fought. Lilith believed that she was to be treated with equality, because she came from the same dust as he did." The mother took a moment as she was lost deep in thought. "...It reminds me of humans, and how they treat the Diclonius... Anyways, Lilith retreated from the garden, to be chased by three angels... By then, Adam had created Eve with his rib. Eve did not claim equality, and therefore, there was no room for Lilith in his heart. But ever since, Lilith travels around the world, howling her hatred of mankind through the night, pledging vengeance from treatment she had received from Adam... Or in this case, humans..."

"But that name," the father says with a concerned look on his face, "It hints that she is no better than the other Diclonius before her." He shakes his head as to say, 'no', as he doesn't want to consider such a name with a grim meaning.

"But, it fits her for the moment," the mother says with a twinkle in her eyes, "Her name will be a constant reminder for her of what she is to stray away from in the first place. Isn't that what those other Diclonius seek? Greater representation and superiority? That's why the humans view them as such horrid beings! Humans just can't accept competition for superiority. So, if she has such a name to look down upon, she can prove it wrong."

"Yes, but--"

"And one day, she can leave behind her name and her past... She will finally become accepted as she deserves to be. When she becomes accepted by society, she can even change her name to what she wants it to be." the mother ends her sentence, and looks up to her future husband in the eye. After a few seconds, the father is somewhat at a peace. The mother, exhausted, collapses her head onto her pillow with a thud.

"Alright..." the father put his hand on his daughter, Lilith, and gently brushes his fingers against her cheek. Together with his wife and the help of this doctor, they were to make Lilith's future the best as it could be, with the harsh and unfair circumstances that life has dealt them to behold. "You will grow up and accomplish so many great things, Lilith...It's just a matter of time, now..."

Lilith wouldn't be like other Diclonius. She would be an entirely new creature who could help make the world a better place for Diclonius and humans alike... If she so dedicated her life to watching every step she took. For every step she would take, someone will be watching; taking note of every action. No matter how many steps she takes, she still will not be able to look back to the Diclonius behind her, lest she lose her balance and fall over. The parents look down upon their beloved daughter, and instantly know it in their hearts that Lilith will be the first of many to pave the path for a kinder world, with kinder Diclonius. She must lead the way.

_After all, it's like they say;  
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step._


	2. Ein wehmütiges Schlaflied

****

* * *

  
Elfen Tränen  
_Ein wehmütiges Schlaflied / A Nostalgic Lullaby_  
**(Revised on August 30th, 2009)**

* * *

"Lilith, dear, could you be a dear and pass me the food-coloring from on top of the table?" Mama requests, pointing to a small red and yellow box on the dinning room table.

I nod as I get up from my seat, run over, and snatch the little box off the tabletop, and then handing it to Mama.

"Thanks, sweetie," She says, gently taking the box out of my hands and patting me on the head, "You're a real big help, today." I smile a little. I like how Mama always me helpful to her. It made me feel good; I felt like I was important.

With a slight smile, she quickly opens the box of food-coloring, takes out the red, and puts the rest of the box down onto the table. Mama then takes the red and drops five scarlet droplets of the contents into a batter of cake-mix, eggs, and oil, before she begins stirring it with a manual egg beater. Once she's finished, she takes the beater and begins to head toward the sink with it, very slowly.

"Wait! Mama!! Can I lick the spoon?" I gasp to her, holding my hand out in a childish panic.

She turns around and gives me an expecting grin. "Aha, I _knew_ you'd ask. Of course. And it's not a spoon, it's an egg beater, dear." She hands me the egg beater and I remove the delicious contents from it, and then I run over to grab the bowl off of the kitchen counter. I clean that, too.

As I finish business with the bowl, Mama washes her hands under the sink, and afterwards, she pulls her pretty dark-brown hair out of its shoulder-length ponytail.

_I wish I had pretty hair like hers._

"Well, sweetie, your birthday cake is in the oven right now. You even helped me make some of it!" Mama smiled.

"Yeah!" I grin widely.

She puts her hand in her chin and meets me at eye-level. "Did you have fun today?" She asks me.

I take another lick of the frosting off of the bowl before I answer her. "Mmmmyup!"

* * *

My sixth birthday was today, and me, Mama, and Papa are all celebrating it together in the privacy of our home, like always.

Previous years for my birthday, Mama would bake my favorite cake, Angelfood Cake with every fruit imaginable, and Papa would let me miss a day of his daily home-schooling lessons. Also, my doctor, Doctor Larr, would visit, bringing another cake, Blueberry Crumble, that his wife Inori had baked. He would bring the cake along with a stack of presents he hand-picked himself at various stores.

My most favorite part about my birthday, though, was tearing the wrapping paper off of the presents and wearing the shiny bows in my hair that would be sticky-taped to the package. That, and my birthday was directly two days before Christmas. I got double the amount of presents, all at once.

As for the weather, it would normally have been a clear-skied day for my birthday, but today, hints of snowfall could be traced through the somewhat hazy skies.

I liked snow.  
I never actually got to play in it, but whenever Papa comes home from work, he would sometimes make a packed snowball at our door and throw it at me when he came inside the house. Mama would get mad when the carpet got wet, and yell at the both of us.

I see snow other times, too, though;

When I watch the T.V in the living room, I see all sorts of movies with kids who play outside on sleds, build snowmen, and have snowball fights. Other times, I see programs where various people complain about how chilly it is outside. Every so often, I tune into a medical show to see a man with frostbite or frost burn. I also once saw a movie where a caveman got frozen in the snow for over a thousand years!

I, myself, have never experienced the bitter cold weather for my own being, as my mother keeps me inside all the time.

Actually, I've never stepped out of my house before. My parents and secret family doctor all say that it will be a long time before they ever let me even think about walking to the public. I confronted them about this once, saying that I'm grown-up enough to be able to handle going outside, but they just said 'no', and that was the end of it.

I wonder what the outside world is like, but sometimes, I can catch a glimpse of the outside world through the one-way curtains installed over our windows. As a rule, my parents never allow me to lift up the blinds, answer the door, or go outside.

My view on the outside world comes from the television programs I watch in the afternoon, before Papa comes home and tells me that I'll ruin my mind if I watch too much of it. Other times, I hear about the world by reading the newspaper, and the few stories that my parents tell me when they come home from work.

But I have a secret that I won't tell anybody:  
Someday, I want to be able to walk outside and meet new people. I want to be famous. I don't know if I'm any good at acting, but if I can ever go outside someday, I'll give it a try.

I get lonely being here all by myself. I love my parents very much, but I can't live on their company alone to keep me socially content all the time.

* * *

I sit at the kitchen table, elbows on the table, waiting eagerly for Doctor Larr to arrive. Doctor Larr is a nice guy in his late twenties, and he also happens to secretly be my doctor. He called Papa just an hour before, and said that he was on his way.

But it was starting to get late.

_No matter! He'll get here when he does._  
_I'm sure he just got held by traffic._

I looked out the black, one-way curtains to the left of the dining room table, onto the parking lot.

When Doctor Larr pulls into our garage's driveway, I'll run and attack him with a hug. But, I'd have to wait until he walks inside, otherwise Mama will get mad.

Doctor Larr is one of my favorite people. He is like the older brother I never had, despite our age difference.

* * *

Mama is humming a sad tune while she is finishing decorating the delicious-looking cake with icing from a white tube. It is the same song she always hummed, for as long as I can remember.

I remember that when I asked her what the song she was singing was, she told me it was a song that she once heard in a beautiful music box, when she was a child;

_She was little when she stumbled into an old antique shop years ago, and took a look at the wares. There, she saw glass figurines, beautifully carved statues, and in the back, antique music boxes._

_In particular, she was infatuated with a particular wooden box with the word, "Lilium" elegantly engraved on the top. She carefully opened the beautiful music box, and listened to the nostalgic song that emitted from it.  
Reaching into her pocket, she had no money to buy it with, and thus, she had to leave it._

_'I'll buy it tomorrow, when I get my allowance,' She told herself._

_Walking out of the store, a boy with black hair, maybe a year older than herself, ran in with a small girl, perhaps his little sister, to the music box._

_"I'm going to buy this one!" he wailed, before bringing it to the counter._

_Mama could only watch as the old man who owned the antique store took the little boy's money and handed him a receipt._

_Upset, young Mama left the store empty handed, humming the melancholy song all the way home and forever afterward. When she finally gave birth to me, she would sing it to me as I slept; a lullaby.  


* * *

_My heart flutters with excitement when I see a silver colored vehicle pull into our driveway.

"Mama! Mama, look!" I yelled while pointing. She turned around from slathering pink frosting onto the cake to look out the window. She strains her eyes for a while until she sees the shape of a car outside in the lot.

"I bet that's Brendon. Early as ever, I see..." she sighs, but then forms a smile.

She calls over my dad by his first name to get the door and let Brendon in. As a rule, we kept the door locked. We did keep a key hidden in a fake stone on our porch, which Doctor Larr uses frequently, but now, he had his hands full with colorfully wrapped boxes and a cake cautiously resting on the top of the load.

Papa ran into the entrance from the back room he was decorating with birthday decorations, to answer the doorbell. He looks through the peephole before opening, smiles, and then proceeds to hold the door for Doctor Larr.

A lot of snow sneaks into our home as he walks in.  
Doctor Larr takes off his snow-covered boots and sets them down neatly together on the 'Welcome' mat nearby the door.

"Brendon! So glad you could join us. I saw the weather reports for today. Did you get down here okay?" My mother ambushed.

"Yeah, the weather was pretty bad, but it was bearable. But there _was_ a little hold-up on the intersection a ways down." Brendan explained.

"Oh, really?" My mother says with interest as she takes Doctor Larr's jacket and hangs it up in the living room closet. Apparently, there was a car accident. The car looked pretty mashed up. There was an ambulance carrying someone out on a stretcher. I drove past it too fast to catch a glimpse of who it was, though." Dr. Larr hangs his jacket in the nearby closet, and walks into the living room with my parents.

"How unfortunate... And it's almost Christmas, too." my Papa frowns. He hates when people get hurt, both intentionally and accidentally.

Dr. Larr frowns. "Yes...It's quite unfortunate. Well... where's our birthday-girl?!" he says as he changes his expression into a smile. When he spots me, he eagerly tosses me a pink present with a small and delicate red ribbon.

"Happy birthday, kiddo." he smiles. I smile back with a goofy expression and look down at the gift. I love the ribbon right away...The wrapping paper is so shiny and metallic...And, on top of all that, it has a giant red bow, slapped onto the top of the birthday card attached! I eagerly start to reach for it before Papa snatches the entire present away from my hands. I stomp my foot to the ground once and pout.

"Papa!" I yell with angst.

"You can't open this yet, sweetie. Not until we slice the cake!" he exclaims, thinking I, a six year old going on seven, will understand the reasoning perfectly.

Today, I am years old. There is no reasonable excuse that can keep me, or any seven year old for that matter, from a giant present that was half the size of me!

"Well, give me a knife, and I'll cut it for you, then!" I say, holding my hand out to him.

Mama, Papa, and Doctor Larr all chuckle.

"A little impatient, isn't she?" My Mama jokes while ruffling the hair on my head. She brushes against the horns on my head by accident, but she doesn't seem to notice that they're there...

"Am not!" I snap before running back to the dining room table, a couple feet away.

Papa begins takes the beautifully wrapped presents that Dr. Larr wrapped into the back room, which is across the hallway from my own room. When he comes back, Doctor Larr is struggling to carry the largest of the presents. Doctor Larr isn't exactly the muscular type.

"Here, Brendon. Let me carry those in back for you." Papa says as he takes two of the larger gifts in the back of the room.

Six, seven, eight. Eight presents for me on this birthday, I count. Eight gifts from those who I loved the most. That is the absolute best part about my birthday, even better than the big bows that they placed on the gifts before I opened them.

My Mama rushes back to the kitchen, finishing the last adjustments on her special cake. As a rule, she said I wasn't allowed to peep a look at it once it came out of the oven, but I can't help myself as a child's curiosity takes over.

Pink with red icing, white and red sprinkles! My favorite colors.  
Strawberries, sweetened cherries, and razz berries scattered decoratively around the circular shaped cake.

I must have been staring for too long, as my Mama felt my eyes looking at the gorgeous cake and yelled at me for being such impatient an impatient child.

She wasn't mad, but just a little disappointed that I sort of ruined the surprise that she worked so hard on, for the birthday-girl.

Doctor Larr is sitting on the living room couch, watching the T.V show I had pulled up.

It was the History channel, a channel which always caught my eye for some reason. I am too little to understand exactly everything that the Narrator says half the time, but when I do understand, it fascinates me:

The actions of humans and their wrong-doings, the reason why dinosaurs are extinct now, and why the sun will cease it's existence in approximately another 8 billion years.

Doctor Larr is enjoying the show, "How the Earth Was Made".

Yes, Doctor Larr was a little strange, but I guess, that's how I view all grown-ups. Mama says that he is a very kind and attractive man, much to Papa's dismay. Papa is good friends with him.

"He did us a favor that no matter what we do, we will never be able to repay...", Papa says.

What Dr. Larr did and why it was so great, I don't think I'll ever know.

All I know is that Mama and Papa take Dr. Larr into our home as often as he likes, cooking a marvelous dinner and letting him eat whatever he wants.

They really like him.

* * *

"The cake is done! Everyone, to the back room! Now!" Mama chirps, excited.

She carries the cake that I already ruined the surprise from in my sight as she walks sideways to the hallway in the back. Suddenly, Doctor Larr throws me up into the air and carries me over his shoulder through the hallway, upside-down. I laugh, and he laughs, too. He sets me down once we reach the door.

"Happy birthday, Lilith!" my parents cry out as they throw streamers at me. Papa sits me to the couch in front of a table were my presents and cake are sitting. I can't wait to open the presents, and the cake is just begging for me to eat it all in one bite.

"Happy birthday", Dr. Larr says as Mama hands him a lighter to set the candles ablaze. Mama playfully slapped Papa on the face for having the lighter in his possession, as he smoked about two or more cigarettes a day. He said he was going to break the habit, but we still have yet to see those cigarette boxes disappear from our sight.

The candles' wicks are topped with a tiny circular fire, and Papa pushes me off of the couch.

"Make a wish. Blow out the candles!" he says with a smile. Mama and Doctor Larr smile at me, just having finished singing 'Happy Birthday' to me.

I get up to the cake and close my eyes. I blow out every candle in one breath of air and, with a wish in my mind, I have my birthday desire in thought...

_I wish to go to the "outside-world" and meet all sorts of nice people...  
Someday soon, if possible._

And my family of three cheers for me. Mama takes the candles out of the cake and tosses them into the trash in the back corner. I sat there for a while, admiring the decorative red letters of Mama's calligraphy on the cake, written in frosting.

"Happy Birthday, Lili." she had written. Lili was my nick-name, but only my Mama called me by that name, and rarely, if ever. It was pronounced, "Lily". I don't like it, but if my Mama likes to call me that, I'll let her.

Papa took the cake-knife out and began to slice the cake into triangular pieces, eight in total.

"We can each have two," he told us.

"You can have my second piece, if you want, Lilith. It's your birthday, after all." Dr. Larr offered.

As I begin to take the first few bites of my cake, I begin to think that maybe I _will_ take him up on that offer...

* * *

When the cake was finished, Mama collected all our plastic forks and plates, rushing to the kitchen to dispose of them. I follow after her, and after me, Papa and Doctor Larr rise from their spots on the couch.

Mama went to the trash bin to throw away the dirty dishes, and then washed her hands promptly in the kitchen sink with hot water. As she walked over to the cabinet to dry her hands off on the white rag that hung from it, she looked out the small window.

And she let out the loudest scream I've ever heard her shout in my seven years of my life.

"Kenji...What's going on!?" Mama exclaimed. My Papa, hearing his first name and seeing Mama's horrified face, ran over to her side to get a better view of the display outside.

He stands there, turning his head to look around outside.

_The sound of a gunshot rings throughout the street._

Papa blankly stares with horror into the sight outside.

"Lilith..." he calls to me without turning around. "Go, hide! Stay hidden in the back of the closet in Mama and Papa's room, and remain there, until I say otherwise! Do you hear me?! You will stay there!" he points to his room, yelling at me as though I was a dog that just got into trouble.

On my way to the large room, I look back to see him turn to my Mama. He says, "Kaiyo, hide the cake. If anyone asks, it was your birthday..." Papa then stops talking and motions for me to shoo away. "...Got it?"

* * *

I run into the large master bedroom, decorated with embroidered gold furniture, and I dive into the small closet.

I don't exactly know why I'm hiding, but I have to stay here until Mama and Papa tell me I can get out.

I land in an uncomfortable position on my bottom, and squirm until I can comfortably sit on a pair of high-heeled shoes belonging to Mama. I cover myself with a dark, silk shirt that I had accidentally knocked off of its hanger.

I tuck in my feet underneath my knees, wrap my arms around my legs, and I sit in that spot very quietly for the longest of time.

* * *

When I hear the sound of a wailing ambulance, I begin to panic from my hiding spot in the bedroom; I've only ever seen those types of vehicles on T.V before, on medical shows.

Only, I knew that those were only called in when things got serious.

I hear multiple sounds, that one sound very similar to the gunshots in those old-fashioned cowboy movies, and a cover my ears with my hands in an attempt to drown out the noise. They were so much louder in real life.

What was even louder than the gunshots, however, was the deafening silence that ensued.

The silence is broken by the cheers of other people outside, but I can't make out what they are saying. The noise is drowned out by the ambulence sirens whirring in the air.

Doctor Larr runs in to tell me to stay in here for just a bit longer. I smile at him, before he runs back into the other room again.

I wait in this very spot for about ten minutes before I hear more cars arriving into the street.  
Mama left the window slightly cracked, and I can hear the sound of static Walkie-talkies speaking from a short distance.

The doorbell rings. I freeze. I don't know why I have any reason logical to be scared, but with how all the grown-ups told me to hide as thought they were in a panic, I guess I got spooked a little, too. I quiet my breathing as I hear Papa greet an unfamiliar voice. It is loud and husky, and sounds very official. I am able to hear what they are saying, but in small sentences.

"Have you seen...","Did you witness...", and finally, "Mind if I take a look around for..." before my Papa answers with a n unsure and uncomfortable 'yes'.

I hear keys jingling throughout the hallways as the official-voice bearer walks into the back room. I hear them walk around a bit before they come into the bedroom. I don't know what the man is looking for, but by now I can tell that it is a police officer.

I stay silent as a mouse until I notice a silky spider-web on a nearby shelf. I'm not so scared by this nearly as much as when I see a giant, black spider crawling it's way down the wall. I am about to yell. I'm deathly afraid of those eight-legged beasts.

_They are disgusting and odd-looking. I always stay away from them, as they sicken me, with their eight-legs. They aren't pretty like lady-bugs, and they don't look elegant like the butterflies. They are like ants, with two additional legs, but the two additional legs are all that it needs to send me screaming. Nobody likes them, except for a few. People are afraid that they will bite and kill, when in reality, most spiders are harmless._

The spider starts to put it's legs on my arm, and I yelp.

The cop looks at the closet, and for a minute I think he sees me, but he looks away and says,

"Thank you for the help. Sorry to have to have bothered you, tonight. Have a Merry Christmas."

My Papa nods and waves slightly before the large Policeman walks out the hallway, closing the door behind him.

When Doctor Larr comes into the room once again and says that it is okay for me to come outside, I gladly take the opportunity to do so. I scream and shudder as I shake off the hideous eight legged, six eyed spider off of my arm. Dr. Larr spots it and grabs one of my moms' interior decorating magazines, folds it into a roll, and squishes it quickly.

As Dr. Larr throws the magazine and dead spider into the garbage, I kind of feel sorry for it. Spiders are odd creatures, and every day they get killed just for looking gross.

But they can't help it.

They're just born that way, and they're trying to survive in a world against them.

And to us, it is sickening, and we take their life so we don't have to look at them,  
those 'disgusting creatures'.

I wonder what it would be like, to be one of these 'disgusting creatures'...

Would I be able to go on with my life, knowing that everyone hated me so much?  
Knowing that I was different, and couldn't do anything about it?

I'm glad that I don't have to worry about anything like that.

I'm normal, just like everyone else...

Right?

* * *

A few minutes later, me, my parents, and Dr. Larr all move back into the Back room with the cake. It is quiet for a little while between my parents, and they look rather sad, judging by the expressions they wear on their faces. I decide to let them be for a while, but curiosity gets the better of me once again.

I turn to Dr. Larr and ask, "What happened? Outside the window?Dr. Larr glances at my parents, and I see my Mama shake her head and mouth the word,

"No, no..." before Dr. Larr says, "It wasn't anything for you to be worried about, kiddo." he says as he pats my head. "Maybe when you're older, I'll be able to tell you."

* * *

I think Mama is crying, but she looks relieved. Papa is sitting next to her on the couch, comforting her by holding her hands in his own. She looks at me and the tears keep on coming, but I don't know what to say to make her feel better. I think the best is to just leave her alone for awhile. She cries into Papa's shirt, and Papa gently runs his hand on her back.

Since no one is paying attention, I take the perfect opportunity presented to me, and sneak my way over to the window. I carefully squint to look over the golden blinds, and I look out into the street. And right then, I wish I hadn't have.

_Blood.  
Everywhere._

_There are three bodies lying in the street, pools of scarlet water running from their hands and their heads. Some are missing limbs._

_My jaw drops._

_I don't know why they are lying in the street like this, but I know that they are not supposed to have red water coming from their cuts. It's like the time I accidentally scrapped my leg on the table, but with ten times more pain._

My thoughts are halted when I see a couple of strong paramedics take a stretcher with and load it into the ambulance.

_But wait... is that... a __**body**__ on it? _

It is a young teenage girl with straight pink hair. She has the same things I do on my head. I hear and see a line of my neighbors, standing in the street shouting profanity at her, cursing at her and wishing her to rot in hell.

The girl is dead.  
But they still hate her, anyways.

_Is she the reason why three young men will not be returning home in time for Christmas tonight?  


* * *

_**Author's Note: Oh... My... God... It took me two hours to edit this chapter from how it originally was, over six months ago! Man, I was a really bad at writing back then! I can't even fix some of the mistakes I made. Oh, well... Anyways, the next chapter will be revised very shortly. **

**Thank you;  
One-Sided Pancake**


	3. Tage werden zu Wochen, Wochen zu Monaten

**_Isn't it kind of ironic that humans... _**

**_Who destroy the world around them for their own greedy cause..._**

**_and estrange those who appear different from themselves..._**

**_are allowed to call other beings monsters, when it is they who are doing the very same?_**

**Tage werden zu Wochen, Wochen zu Monaten - The days turn into Weeks, Weeks to Months**

Life works in mysterious ways, in very similar complexion to that of fate. A man who was perfectly healthy and about one morning would be attending his own funeral a few mornings after.

The preacher finishes his talk, and the church bell tolls three times. Men with shovels come and dig dirt from the earth, placing it onto the earth which lie no more than four metres away from my feet. I stay silent. At eight years old, I've never been to a funeral in my life before.

A lone woman from the crowd, a lady in mourning, goes into hysterics as she watches her husband become one with the very earth she stands on. _This is goodbye, this is forever_. Two other women hold this lady's arms tightly, as the woman looks like she is wanting to be buried alive with him. Her tears fall down her face, making her jeweled-eyes sparkle in the rays of sun which travel through the tree leaves overhead. The woman grasps something small in her hand; it is golden in color and has a metal reflection to it. Continuing her fit, she yells how she can't bear part with her beloved husband, and that wherever he goes, she wants to go with him. She eventually tires herself out, and collapses to the ground. She is conscious, and I wonder if she has actually lost her mind. I stand and watch as this woman has an emotional breakdown, right in front of my very eyes. I have nothing to say to her, after all. Nothing I can say could possibly make her feel better. She hated me.

A hand nudges me forward, and I inch closer to the gravestone. I stand until the grave is completely full, grasping a single rose in my hands. I feel like the moment is right as I place the rose at the foot of the stone. For a minute, I feel like I am at a loss for words. My tongue is tied, I have nothing to say. The lady in hysterics, however, is still bursting into tears. I've never seen this woman behave like this. A side to her that she has kept hidden for as long as I ever knew her. She loved her husband more than life itself, and without her husband, life meant nothing.

_To this woman, her husband __**was**__ her life._

_To this woman;_

_my mother,_

_my father __**was**__ her life._

My father died two days ago, on the rainy night of August 31. It was an unfair death.

**_Cruel._**

**_Murder._**

**_Homicide. _**

People at his work started to catch on that he may have been sheltering a Diclonius child in his very home. Father _denied_ it, naturally. Each and every day, he would come home from work stressed, and hug me tightly, telling me everything would be alright.

I never knew exactly what would be alright, or _what_ for that matter was wrong in the first place.

This went on for about six months before one day, men came to our doorstep. They were common-dressed folk, not a police officer squad.

Father recognized these men, and he shook for mother to go away from the door. Mother would whisper in a very frightened tone for me to hide, in the new hiding spot mom always told me to go. Hide under the master bedroom bed, absolutely still and silent. Mother reached for the rifle, which Father kept on a high shelf that was much too far up for a child like me to reach. From under the bed, I hear the raising voices of men arguing intensely, and then I hear the shattering crashes of vases and various furniture in the living room.

"We know you have a Diclonius hidden in here, Kanamoto. Everyone at work knows." I shudder at the sound of our last name being said in such a foul manner. I hear a gunshot go off, and the thunder outside rampages like never before. My father yells for people to stop and that there was no "Diclonius" child living with them. The men must have said otherwise, as I hear them yell at the top of their lungs, calling him profane names. I hear my father yelling back, but I can't quite hear the rest afterwards, as all the men angrily join in.

The name calling and yelling goes to a halt as a slew of bullets go off in the other room. I shut my eyes and pray; the only thing an eight year old girl could do in this situation. Shudders run in my spine, and I nearly pass out of fright. The rest, I only remember from what Dr. Larr... No. I **only **remember from what_ Brendon _tells me. He found me under the bed after the investigation, as he had been told by my parents to look for me there in the case of emergency.

Apparently, the men downstairs shot my father in the chest, which was solid enough to penetrate through his skin and just slightly hit his heart in a way that it took his life. My mom, who stayed hidden behind the couch in our living room throughout the whole brawl out of shock, regained her thought process as her life stood on risk when she snapped back into consciousness. The men were starting to walk into the rest of our house from the doorstep. Mother took the gun she once grasped and blindly shot everywhere in the room she could with the filled ammunition. She had no experience with arms such as guns. She luckily shot three of the men spot on, and the two others ran away before she could shoot her way towards them.

Four dead men were lying, sprawled out on the living room in their own guilty blood by the time the police arrived with the ambulances.

My mother lied to the authorities about everything that happened. She told them that it had been a debt that her husband didn't pay off, and they came to collect. She said that he liked to gamble sometimes, and this time, the game was taken too far. The police believed her, and were on the lookout for the other two remaining men that had escaped. There is no way they would tell the police my mother had lied, as they would blow their cover and get themselves turned in for manslaughter and attempted theft.

Mother left me under the bed as she rushed with father to the hospital in the ambulance. I guess she just forgot about me, then. I know stress can get to people in a pinch.

They didn't make it, anyways. Father was long dead by the time he got the hospital. The hospital workers said that he was dead before they even got there.

_After finding no other evidence on the bullet that killed my father, Mother took it secretly after his funeral and kept it as a keepsake._

She held with her the very bullet that murdered her meant-to-be lifelong partner, whom had given his life to buy his family some time to survive with their own.

Brendon was called by my hysterical mother when she used the hospital phone. She asked that he take me away from the house, and never to bring me back. She also said that we should never visit her. Ever. It was unsafe for me to keep staying there. I started living with Brendon from that moment on. I had to hide in a spare room upstairs whenever company came so that people wouldn't see me, but otherwise, the rules were the same as they had been with Mother and Father.

Except, Brendon is a lot less strict than they are. He doesn't yell at me to pick things up or clean my dishes nearly as much as Mother and Father nearly did. He isn't sure how to home-school me like Mother or Father did. He isn't used to being a parent, or even a guardian for that matter. I know that he's learning, but... I kind of like the freedom. In fact, think I like him...

He also tells me the reasons to why Mother and Father wouldn't let me outside. He goes to his large green bookshelf when I ask him, and he searches for a small book in the corner of one of his dusty bookshelves. It has the words, "Diclonious - The Evolutionary Disaster" printed boldly on it. He pages through the book before he hands it to me and tells me to read it, and ask him any questions I may have while reading. I took it to the kitchen table, and placed my elbows on the table while reading word-for-word like my parents had taught me...

I only needed to read the summary to understand my situation.

_Diclonius. Monsters with mutated DNA, born into this world with the intent on domination. Easily distinguishable from the human by red hair, red eyes, and horns. They contain arm-like vectors that vibrate so quickly, they are invisible to the naked eye. The vectors easily slice and lift things. They are meant to be used to kill prey; humans. Fueled by a sadistic personally, the Diclonius use their powers to kill all those who cross their path. After the first case was reported, all babies born with the condition are killed upon birth, as to prevent the future happenings. One Diclonius, code-named Lucy, was left into society however, but was forced to be retained by the military after a series of murders over civilian lives._

I closed the book from the back and got down from the chair. I walked over to the bathroom, closed the door, and looked into the mirror. I remembered one of the first lines from the book.

"_Red eyes_." I thought while looking into my face. The eyes the color of blood.

"_Red hair_." I thought while I ran my fingers through the straight and soft locks at the ends.

"_Horns_." I thought while feeling the bone-like structures growing through my scalp.

I am... a Diclonius. The way this book narrated the Diclonius, we were not meant to exist, in the human's eye. We are monsters. We are an evil race, with the vile goal to kill all humans. But, I have never considered any of these as to attributes to myself.

I never have the instinct that this book says a Diclonius thrives on. Never. Never had I felt blood-thirst or extreme rage. Never have I thought about taking a human life. I was a monster at birth, but I was completely innocent of these assumed attributes.

I can't find the tears to cry. They're there, but won't give in to the gravity around me.

**~ *-_-_-_-_-_-*~**

I slowly walk back to my temporary room when I hear the shrill ringing of Brendan's telephone. My senses are very sensitive at a moment like this. I hear Brendan walk over to it, look at the caller ID, and then answer the phone. I cling to the corner of the hallway wall on-looking the apartment kitchen that Brendan stood in. He held the phone into his left hand. He was nodding, as if the caller could see him, and gasped at a certain point. The phone nearly leaps out of his hand as he turns around to face me. He makes eye contact while he continues to talk to whoever it may be on the other end.

"...Is that so..." He says solemnly. After a few words, I wonder what is going on. Did someone find out about me? I hear a beep as Brendan turns off the phone and places it onto the receiver. He misses two times before he finally latches the phone onto it's home. He wipes some sweat off of his forehead, jumbles with his tie, and clears his throughout as he slowly makes his way towards me. He kneels down so that he is equal to my height. He places his hands on my shoulders, looks me in the eyes, and tells me the words I did not want to hear for a long time.

"...You may be too young to understand it now...But Lilith...Your mother is dead." He sputters out. His words are sort of slurred, and I can tell that he tried really hard to word it so that I could understand.

I understood perfectly, however. But still, how? How could my mother be dead? She was perfectly fine...Well, she was perfectly physically fine last Brendon checked on her. Tears finally decide to make their escape from the prison of my eyes as they well up in the corners. I let them fall without restrain and they land on the ground.

I ran into Brendan's arms and cried for a good five minutes before I find my ability to speak fluently again.

"...H-how...*hic* did she d-die?" I cry. He looks up at the ceiling, thinking, before he decides to word things to me.

"She killed herself at the hospital tonight, Lilith... For reasons we may never understand." I cried even more. My mother found her life unworthy to live in? So, she took her own life by her own hands and disposed of it? To me, eight years old, this was unthinkable. I couldn't comprehend, but at the same time, I could. It was unexplainable, in reality. It was only two o'clock in the evening, and I could use a good sleep now. The tears made my eyes heavy and want rest. Why did this happen? Things were such a blur to me right now. I couldn't tell reality from fiction. Father's dead, I'm a Diclonius in hiding, I must live with Brendan, and my Mother committed suicide.

"...-And Lilith, there is something else--" He says to me, his words rising in pitch as he goes along to say them. He began to cry, for the first time I ever have seen him do so, and handed me an opened letter. I was afraid to read it. Whatever caused such a reaction from Brendon was something that would pain me. Would I want to read it?

The letter was very official looking. It was long, had the privacy strip on the plastic, and was sealed by the police's logo. I slid the letter out very slowly, opened it from it's folded state and began to read it. Brendan left to get tissues while I read the first paragraph.

**"_To my great friend Brendan and my beloved daughter Lilith,_**

**_The two of you are both in great danger. I can only write so much as the police have probably taken me in for questioning. Let me explain, best as I can...  
_**

**_The two men who had escaped the crime scene were caught, both luckily and unfortunately. My husband has been brought to justice, but for a price. The men told everything to the police about us sheltering a Diclonius within our household. The police issued a search and found various belongings, such as strands of hair in brushes, children's toys, and that ragged doll of yours. I ran away to escape questioning, but I was found on the spot. I just now found paper and a dying pen to write this with._**

**_ If all goes as planned, I will escape questioning completely. Brendan, you are no longer safe housing Lilith. The police have caught on apparently and have tried to reach you on your phone, repeatedly. Whether you missed the calls or just didn't answer them, they threaten to visit your house. Take Lilith elsewhere. _**

**_As I said earlier, if all goes according to my plan, I will not be questioned and you will be able to live freely. I will try to find a nearby mailbox to drop this in before the police come. What I plan next, you will find out after you receive this letter. Do not call me, do not respond. _**

**_Lilith, Brendan. I am sorry to have to do this, but I must. I can't live on with this emotional scar. To bear a Diclonius child is too much for me, and I can't take it much longer. There are too may consequences to bear, and I fear that we've only experienced the least of it thus far. _**

**_This is farewell, until we meet again_."**

Seeing that I am finished reading the letter, Brendan resumes to talk.

"Lilith, you need to run. Far from here..."

And as if on cue, I hear the dreaded noise.

Like so many times before, I hear knocking on the door. I hear keys jingling and someone yells,

_"This is the police. Open up."_

_This is farewell, indeed_, I say to myself and Brendan.

**~ *-_-_-_-_-_-*~**

**~ So much has happened in this chapter, I'm sorry, but the action will start to rise in the next chapter. This chapter was closing up some loose I go back and see any parts where it doesn't make sense, I'll go back and fix them for one to understand better. Please continue to read, when I finally type up the next chapter.**

**Thank you! OSP  
**


	4. Irrsin Verzehrt

**Hi, this is One-Sided-Pancake, with another chapter of my own EL fanfiction. Normally, I try to refrain from Author Notes, but this chapter is very very close to converting my story to and M rating. If you like my story thus far and would like to continue reading it, please put it on alert, as it may switch after this chapter, because some graphic violence is to appear after this chapter, I can story is meant to be a tragedy / crime / comfort fic, in that exact order. We are currently about to progress from the tragedy to the crime portion of the story.  
**

**Warnings for this chapter: Language, Child Abuse, Violence, Some Blood, and some Adult Situations.**

**Thank you~**

_There are some days that you look into a mirror and say,  
"Looking good today!"_

_There are other days that you look into a mirror and say,  
"Today is just not my day..."_

_But, somewhere out there, someone looked into a mirror today and said,  
"What kind of a monster am I...?"_

_**Irrsin Verzehrt - Insanity Consumes**  
_

It has been a year since the police knocked on Brendan's door that one unfortunate night, searching for me. When the police grabbed my hand to lead me away, I wouldn't be taken without a fight. I kicked, screamed, dodged. T police brought out their guns and lowered their eye coverings. Where they really afraid of me, at age eight? How pathetic. I could barely ride my bike yet in the basement without falling. I must have been intimidating, to scare them like that. I kind of felt a little proud, in that sense.

Anyways...They eventually grabbed me tightly by my arms and legs, placing some sort of eye blindfolding cloth to block my line of sight. I felt uncomfortable being unable to see where I was going. The ride in the car felt like it lasted for days.

I was eight years old then, and now, I am nine. I will turn ten in a little over two weeks. Not that anyone here cares. Where I am now, no one cares about who you are, why you are here, or when you are leaving. A place filled with children, some new, some old. Every now and then, people come and go, but time still keeps going. I was brought to an orphanage, assumably a few miles away from where I had lived before with Brendan. I was brought to this disgusting and bad excuse of a home that I now reside in. I hate it. I hate it with every fiber of my being, for all they're worth, if anything. I want to escape from here someday. I'll escape to somewhere, someday. Anywhere but here is where I will go.

I turn around to see through the yellow-tinted-from-oldness glass windows onlooking the hallway. I see a tall and thin brown-haired boy, about twelve or thirteen, holding the hands a middle-aged couple. All three are wearing big smiles, and the Mom pulls out a candy bar, giving it to the boy. He reaches for it eagerly, and the parents laugh as they continue walking. They walk towards the 'door in the back', as we orphans here call it. A few orphans beside me silently curse some words which they shouldn't say or know at their age, and they complain about the boy.

"Look how lucky he is...Gettin' to leave. He only been here fer a few months, ain't he?" an uneducated child said, scratching his head.

"Yeah. He was always the baby, wasn't he? Gettin' whatever he wants, whenever he wants...They always gave him more food, anyways." a girl joins in. She continues to eat a small portion of her lunch.

"God, I hate him. I've been here the longest, why the hell does he get to leave? It's not fair...It's not fair!!!" an older boy yells, while he punches the wall beside us.

I don't particularly hate the boy. He was walking to the famous 'Door in the Back', or, the door with the 'Exit only' sign on it. It was the very door that orphans were so rarely seen walking out of, accompanied by an adult. Leaving through that door meant that you had no intention of ever coming back.

_Although the other orphan kids hated him, I felt happy for him. I didn't personally know him, nor did he know me, but I felt happy. I would never know who he was, nor would he ever know me. But, he was finally able to fulfill my dream, of leaving this place. Even if it's not me who was leaving, he was the one. He would walk out those doors with his new family, and never have to return here ever again._

**- - - - - - - **

It is lunch time, now.

The children are all next to me; laughing, giggling, and playing happily. Papers are flying everywhere, pencils being thrown across the room, miscellaneous items finding their way to the floor. One kid says something funny, and the rest of his friends laugh. Someone passes their nearby friend an orange juice cup, while another starts to open a Ziploc bag containing a sandwich within it. A girl takes me by the hand and laughs. Another plays with my hair, while yet another is drawing on my arm.

Here, I am popular. Everyone seems to know me. Everyone is having fun, and I'm the center of attention.

And I hate it.

**Let me rephrase what I said earlier, with a few _minor _details added in...**

_The vicious children all surround me; mocking, taunting, and name calling evilly. __My papers are being torn everywhere, my pencils being snapped and thrown across the room, miscellaneous items such as my family photos being smashed across the floor. One kid calls me a "Demon", and the rest of his friends point and laugh. Someone steals the orange juice off of my lunch tray and passes it to a nearby friend, while another one rummages through my bag and steals my sandwich. A girl holds back my hands to the ground and laughs. Another pulls some of my hair out, while yet another is digging a pen into my arm, carving various insults into it in red ink._

_Here, I am hated. Everyone seems to hate me. Everyone is bullying me, and there's nothing I can do._

The orphanage-mother turns her eyes my way and walks back out the room. She never helps me, anyways. Who am I, thinking that she would help me? She always came up with some excuse as to why she wouldn't help me.

"Do you not appreciate and understand the work that I do around here to provide a roof over your heads each day?" She says. Last time I checked, all the 'work' she ever did was sit in her back office, watching a stupid show on that T.V of hers. Her room had a fireplace for the winter, a fan for the summer, a mini-fridge filled with dozens of treats, and a comfortable mattress that apparently adjusts to how your body shape is when you sleep.

Meanwhile, we orphans sleep on sour-smelling cots, of which gave us rashes sometimes. We had no heat in the winter nor good air for the summer. We ate one meal a day, and sometimes, we would only get a small half triangle of a sandwich. The worst part? There were 29 sour smelling cots, and 30 orphans. Guess who got to sleep on the floor which so many children have accidentally relieved themselves on in the middle of the night? Could it possibly also be the person who sometimes got no sandwich because someone else insisted on 'borrowing' it?

Unfair. Unfair. Unfair.

I feel the pen dig into my arm deeper as I feel a sharp pain rush to a vein. Did it get cut? I don't know. I feel something run down my arm. Liquid. I guess it did hit a vein, after all. I start to cry, as my hair is yanked, and a boy of age 14 starts to kiss me forcefully. I feel his tongue and I bite down it, drawing blood to it. He yelps as he calls me a profane name, punching me in the face.

And now, of all times, the house-mom decides to do something.

"What is going on here?!" she runs in, yelling. The children jump and run from me, going unnoticed by the house-mom.

"She was cutting herself with her pen!" One girl yells out.

"We told her not to, but she just kept cutting and cutting, deeper each time!" a girl sobs.

"She's gone mad, I reckon!" the boy with the bleeding tongue yells.

The housemother yanks me up by the hand, and practically drags me to the office. When she closes the door, I finally am thankful that she saved me for once. I want to thank her. As she walks over to me, I don't know how to start. So, she starts for me.

She slaps me in the face. I fall back against the door with a thud.

I place my engraved hand over my cheek, and I begin to cry again. Tears run down my face, and I can't hold back some whimpers.

"You know that if anyone sees you like this, I'm going to get in trouble! If you didn't always do this sort of thing, I wouldn't have anything to worry about!! Stupid little red-headed bitc-" I kick the lady in the knee. I open the door and run out as fast as I can, like my life depended on it. Because this time, perhaps my life **did **depend on it...

I want to die. I want to die right here, right now.

I finally understood what it meant to be a Diclonius. I was prejudiced. I was given unequal rights and horrible treatment from peers. Adults even made fun of me... Was I really all so strange?

I run down the hallway, and I push open the 'Door in the Back'. I run out the yard, covered with dead plants and weeds. I run towards the rusty gate, and try to climb up high enough to unlatch the hook. I try to grasp the iron gate handle, but it won't budge. I'm not strong enough. I hear the house-mom yelling behind me, her wailing getting louder with each call.

"LILITH!!!"

I frantically give up on the lock and try to climb my way over the fence. One foot after another,I place them into the holes of the fence, pulling my way up with my arms. I look behind me, as I see the house-mother run her way towards me once she sees me halfway to the top of the fence. She reaches her arms out, and I climb faster. I am almost above the fence, ready to step over, when two harsh hands grasp my ankle and yank me down. I scrape my hands against the barb wire atop of the fence, and I land on my knees as I fall to the ground. The house-mom grabs my hair and is as red as a tomato, as she cusses and yells to me. She drags me back inside, and I catch my reflection on a broken piece of glass that once belonged to a window.

I see my face, my hair, my horns, and my tears.

_How pathetic._

_Look at how **disgusting** I am.  
_

**- - - - - - - **

The house-mom gives me two extra minutes in the shower to clean off my cuts and scrapes. I wash the ink off, but there are still deep cuts from the pen. I suspect that some ink bleed into my cuts, which explains the occasional stinging every now and then. I drag the dirty black and brown washrag across a cut in the mispelled shape of "monstor" and another in the shape of "Go bak to hell scum".

More tears slide down my face, but the dirty shower water carries them away.

I get out of the shower in a wet towel as another girl rips it from my skin and takes it for herself. I walk to the orphanage bedroom, naked, trying to find my clothes. I open the creaky dresser drawer and reach for my pajamas. I should have about two pairs, if I remember correctly. I reach inside.

_Nothing_.

Where are they? I placed them here just a while ago. I look around to see some other girls giggling.

"You don't mind if we borrow this, don' you?" The blonde girl laughs to the black haired girl. They both cover their mouths as they chuckle and laugh before running off.

I can't find any clothes except for some dirty clothes in the laundry pile. They have various stains all over them, but it is cold tonight, and I do not last long in the cold. I almost gag when I catch a smell of the outfit as I put it on over my head.  
I lie down in a nearby cot, which is rare that I ever get one, and begin to drift into sleep. It is short lived as I feel myself hit the ground with a thud, on my side. I look up in a half-alert state to find three boys who had dumped me out of the cot by pulling one end upwards.

"There you go, Kayo-chan." One boy says to a nearby girl. She is little with black hair, and despite being a little dirty, she is beautiful. She looks me in the eye for a minute, and I think I have her sympathy, but then, she steps on me as she climbs up the cot.

"Mind getting out of her space?" Another boy 'questions' as he rolls me to the wall, filled with cobwebs. I scream, as I hate spiders and their gross webs. I crawl towards another corner which held some coloring books, and more importantly, no cobwebs. I am almost out of tears as they land on the ground in dark patches, and my eyes hurt from crying so much today. My eyelids are heavy, and resting them feels good right now. I fall asleep slowly, and all my troubles are put off for yet another day to come...

**A/N : Please review and tell me if I need to work on something, or if I left something unclear somehow...**

**Thank you.**

**P.S - As for the poems that appear before the title, please message me if it is too similar to a poem or line of a story you have seen before. I try to make them pertain to what is going to happen in the story, but I also try to make them somewhat unique as that someone could put it into everyday life...  
**


	5. Aufgerissen

**

* * *

**

_I make a wish on the starry night sky_

_My wishes go unheard, I begin to cry_

_Sleepless nights, my endless insomnia_

_I yearn for my home, my desperate nostalgia_

_

* * *

_**Aufgerissen - Torn Open**

I've been very tired these past few nights. Even when I do manage to get a cot in the sleeping room, I still stir at night. I hear a voice. Someone talks to me, but when I look around, the other children are sound asleep. T

he voice is far too different from the children's voices to possibly be one of them. Unless... They really are trying to scare me. Maybe now, they not only have tormented me in the day, but now have also moved to taunt me at night, as well? I try to drain the noises out with an uncomfortable pillow, but the voice remains ever as loud. There's no one I can really confide in, and the house mother already is on shaky grounds with me. I decide I must be getting a little crazy, and try my best to get a night's sleep to keep me stable for the next day.

"Hey, Lilith. You're not gonna eat yer potato, right? So, you shouldn't let it go to waste," a boy calls to me from the other end of the table. His friends are wearing snickering faces as the boy walks up to me. "In fact..." the boy grabs the overcooked potato off of my tray. "I'll be taking that. You get enough to eat. I barely get any. Besides, I growing man has gotta eat."

He takes the potato and looks to his friends, laughing. He sits back at his spot at the table, and he and his friends occasionally look at me to laugh. I'm left sitting with the remainder of my lunch, the main portion now missing from my tray. It lies within that fat bully's stomach, I know, but my stomach is now begging for something to eat. I can't do much about it.

After a few more _'friends' _decide to confront me about how I get enough to eat, I throw my empty paper plate away. I hate lunch. I'm hungry, but the only thing I managed to drink was the past-expiration-date milk that we were given along with our meals.

_I really miss being with my parents... With Brendan... With my family. This new place was supposed to be my family... Or at least, that's what the cops had said as they dragged me, kicking and screaming, from Brendan's house. _

I hated every kid here. Here every kid hated me. None of them treated me with respect. It was like there were two groups of kids here; Lilith and those who hated Lilith. With the treatment that I have been recieving, I sometimes wish that I had moved to the other team as well, and share why I hate myself. Born as this ugly being I am, born with a reputation before I could even know it.

I can't finish my last thoughts as a hand is stretched to me. I tell the person that I have no food left for them to take, but the hand still remains in it's place. I look up, and I see that the hand in front of me is holding out a half of a potato.

"It's for you." the owner of the hand speaks. I look up to the owner and notice that he isn't looking back to his friends to laugh. He isn't smirking, and his face remains serious. His blue eyes stare back at me with all sincerity written in them.

My eyes suddenly feel very heavy as I find my breath to speak.

"...Thank you..." I say. I slowly reach the potato, cautious of the boy. Would he take his hand away? Was he too trying to make a fool of me? My hunger is much more important than my esteem right now, and I am shocked when he doesn't take his hand away. I grab the potato, and hold it for a while before he speaks.

"You're welcome." He walks away, out of the small cafeteria. He turns around, his brown hair facing me as he walks off out of sight.

_Who was he? This person who has finally given me something? This person who acknowledges my existence as a living thing, that so desires interaction and aspirations? I don't know, but I do gather that he is the first person to treat me like a person. I thank him again in my thoughts, and for the rest of the day, I think about him. We should be friends, I think to myself. I really want to be friends, I think again. Where is he when I don't see him? I ask to my thoughts. He seemed to be distant... Always walking so quickly and frantic. He wasn't kind nor was he mean. Not that anyone could tell, anyways... He never spoke before, at least to us. He doesn't fit into the crowd, just like me. Maybe we have something in common. Would he talk to me? _

_I want to be friends._

* * *

Later that night, I try to get a cot by staying in the bedding room an hour early. I can't lie down in one for about another hour, nor can I sit on one. House mother has a rule that you are not allowed to sleep until it is bedtime. She says it's because it's unhealthy and would make you even more sleepy, but I suspect it's because she doesn't want to deal with whining, crying children at 1 AM in the morning. I can't really blame her, there. Anyways, I sit for about thirty minutes alone in the room, almost facing the impending danger of falling asleep early. My posture is getting really bad, from not getting a stable surface to rest my back on. I don't want to end up with a hunch, so I need to sleep with a surface tonight. My back is aching like mad right about now.

I almost doze off when I am snapped back into consciousness. The door leading to the hallway opens, and someone steps inside the room.

Their footsteps aren't loud and rowdy. They are soft and quiet. I look over to the person, and see it is the same person from before. The boy who gave me part of his lunch earlier today. He looks around and feels my prescence, but he doesn't see me. I am sitting behind a shelf, hidden out of sight. Hiding has always been a talent of mine, ever since I lived with my parents and Brendan. I know that if a group of kids came in and found me, I would probably be pushed around. The boy walks dangerously close to my location, but stops and kneels to the ground. At first, I thought he was sick, and hunched over from pains. I then discovered that he was lifting up a floorboard, taking some sort of object out. I can't see what it is, as his back is turned to me, blocking my view. All I can affirm is that it is probably something very dear to him, as he looks at it for a long time before wiping his eyes on his shirt sleeve. He looks around to make sure he is still 'alone', and places the object back into the floorboard. He takes another object that I cannot see, and I can't tell what he does with it. He places that too back into the floorboard hiding spot. The boy gets up, kicks the board back over the hole, and leaves.

What was in the floorboard? My eyes hover over the location, lingering. I decide I will go and peek under the floorboard. I am about to get up, when the door creaks open again. I frantically sit back down, wondering who it is. It isn't the boy from before. It's a group of girls, giggling and laughing. I have never paid them any mind before, but I sure hope that they leave this room soon. One girl with blonde hair goes over to a dresser and pulls out a deck of playing cards, and the others wait for her at the door. The girl notices some sort of note lying open on the dresser. She begins to read it, and another girl from the group runs over to her to join. The two of them begin to giggle, and the rest come over to read it as well. After all of them laugh, the blonde girl rips the letter up and leaves the pieces lying out on the dresser where the letter sat when it was full. One girl smirks as she tells the blonde girl, "You're so mean".

They run out the door laughing, and I am finally left to myself once again.

Before I get the guts to get up from my hiding spot, I decide that I want to see the letter that the girls had just ripped up. Once I read the letter, I will go look under the creaky floorboard that the boy had hidden something beneath. I go over to the dusty shelf, and piece together the little shreds of paper. Some of the words are incomplete, as I can't piece it all together, but I then realize that it is a letter from a child, writing to their mother. Although there are spelling errors, I can still make out the words.

"Dear mum,

i miss you alot and want to go home with you but i dont kno how too, so i am writing to say i love you and i hope i can come bak to live with you soon

i kno you dont have enuff moneys yet but please come bak for me someday, i reelly hate it here, the kids are mean and they dont like me very much

but i have sum friends here but i want to get out of here so bad so please come bak please mum

your son Kazuko"

I feel sympathetic for this child. He wants to go back home so badly, but his Mother can't afford to care for him. I hope that she intended on taking him back someday...

Kazuko... That name I know well. He was a small one, only about 7 or 8 years old. He was the tough little guy, as explained by other children. He never whined or complained, and he seldom showed his true feelings. He didn't push anyone around, and he didn't torment me. He left me alone, and stood in the back. I don't know why I took my next actions, but I remember the letter by heart and rewrote it on a different piece of paper, copying everything. I copied the handwriting, the way the words fit on the line, the occasional crossed out erros. I forged all of it to look like the original letter. When I was done, I sweeped away the torn remains of the original letter and threw them away. Where the original letter sat, I put my copy of it.

I hope he gets a warm response from his mother, and that they may meet again...

* * *

I finish with the letter business, and resume to my original task; find out what was under the floorboard. I run over the area that the hiding spot was, and try to pry up different boards as I search for the correct one. I eventually pull up a loose board, and find the secret stash.

I look down to see what was in the little spot. I reach in and find a diary, a smooth and shiny stone, a pen, some pictures, a thin red ribbon, and a pair of scissors.

First, I observe the pictures. There are about five pictures, all about the size of my palm and a little dusty. I see a picture of a young boy with two parents smiling, a little girl with brown hair, a black and white cat being held by the same young boy from before, a picture of a family crowding around a boy in a birthday hate, blowing out candles, and the last is of the little girl and boy together, hugging and smiling to the camera.

I am unclear on why each picture is special in specific, but I'm certain that the pictures are of the boy's past life, before the orphanage. The little girl in the pictures kind of looks like me... Well, her hair style at least. Just barely shoulder length, straight at the top, and wavy at the ends. The differences between she and I are that she has blonde hair and dark brown eyes, with a hint of hazel-green.

The boy and the girl are probably not siblings. Maybe childhood friends. I assume the cat belonged to one of the two children, and the rest of the photos were undoubtedly family get-togethers. This boy had a family, or, still has one somewhere. I want to learn more about this boy. I then remember that to my right hand side lies a black notebook with the word "diary" stitched into it.

Should I? Or shouldn't I?

Learn more about this boy, or face the consciousness of having invaded his privacy?

I decide to put the notebook down back into it's location, along with the pictures, the pen, and the scissors. I have no idea why there are scissors here, as everything else seems to have a good cause for being in there. Maybe to cut out pictures? No idea. I decide that I should pick out a bed now, as the time reads 9:01 PM. 9 PM was the official bedtime. I grab a cot and lie down on it, glad that I will be sleeping on a surface other than the creaky wooden floor, tonight...

* * *

I wake up, at about 1 AM in the morning. The voice tells me to wake up. The voice that has been haunting my dreams, the voice which tells me what to do, and where to go. I try to ignore it and begin to sleep off again, but the voice yells at me with twice it's strength. It compels me out of bed. I try to climb off the cot as carefully as possible, as they screech if you jump off of it too quickly. I softly land my feet on the floor, as those also creak if you walk on them too heavily. I swiftly but carefully tip-toe to the door, which lie open already. Normally, the door was closed. I am about to reach it when I accidentally step wrong onto the floor and a loud screech emits the room. I wince as I look around to see if I had awoken anyone, but the only reaction I seemed to cause was my own nervousness.

I continue out the hallway, and the voice controls me to walk to the attic. Without hesitation, I climb up the old wooden stairs, until I reach the attic door.

_Why was I here? Why did I let the voice take me over? What was on the other side of this door? _

I guess that curiosity had taken me over just as the voice had, as I place my hand on the golden doorknob and push the door open. Inside, I saw the boy with the brown hair, sitting on the floor, with the pair of scissors. He looks up at me, his eyes shining with fear. He does not expect me to be here.

The scissors are placed on his left wrist as he looks to me. He drops the scissors out of fear.

_Why is he here at this hour of night... And what was he doing?_

_

* * *

_**Thank you for reading, and please don't forget to leave your review!  
Alert - New major character to be added into the next chapter.**

**OSPancake  
**


	6. Seine Gedanken Niederlegen

**Seine Gedanken Niederlegen - Write Down in Thoughts**

I never knew why the voice had prompted me to go to the attic. What was it's motive for reaching me? Why didn't it just leave me alone?

_That's what I always thought before. That's what I always thought, at least, until now. The voice scared me, but at the same time, I never questioned disobeying it._

I look into the half lit attic room, eyes wide, as my eyes were not yet adjusted to the dim light. I see a small figure standing in front of the window, and figure it is a child who attends the orphanage. He turns around almost instantly, teary eyed. He looks at me and I look at him, but no one dares to make a sound. I am about to ask him what he was doing here at this hour, as the house mother would yell if she found him, but something catches my eye. I look in his left hand, trembling very unsteadily, as he holds a silver pair of scissors to his right wrist. Silver scissors...

They are the same silver scissors that I had seen earlier that night, when I had snooped through the creaky floorboard. Was this the same boy, whose hiding location it had been owned by? And if they were in fact the same scissors and same person... What was he intending their use for? I sure hope it wasn't what it looked like it was...

Whoever it may be, the boy drops the scissors on the floor. It makes a loud ching sound as it bounces off and stumbles a bit before finding an even place to rest on the wooden floor. I step back a little as whisper aloud, "What are you doing?!"

The boy doesn't answer me. He seems like he is in a state of shock, as he turns his head away from me. His hands drop back down to his sides slowly. My eyes finally adjust to the poor lighting in this musty attic, and I can make out his face. Dark brown hair, silvery blue eyes. Yes, this was indeed the boy from before. The boy who hadn't seen me as he puttered with the hiding spot. Why was he up here? He wasn't... going to cut himself... Right...?

"...You should leave now." He spoke to me solemnly. His face remained the same as he bent down to pick up the scissors. I stay in my location, unfettered by his words.

"What...? Come on. We have to go. If the house mother awakens, it'll be the end for both of us..." I encourage him to leave with me. I am about to walk up to him and tug on his arm, to pull him with me, but he moves before I can get a grasp on it. He turns to me, shakes his head 'no', and leaves me feeling a little scared. He then makes a motion with his mouth, as he is about to speak.

_"If you leave now, it will __**only**__ be the end of me, whether she wakes up or not." _he says in a deep tone.

_Only the end of him? He couldn't mean...!?_

I grab his arm and forcefully drag him out the room. I wouldn't let him go through with whatever he was going to do with those scissors. No way, it wasn't going to happen. This boy, who seemed so nice, so kind... Not a chance. The only person who treated me like I mattered, even if all he did was offer me a small portion his lunch. He noticed me. For the first time in these two years of being here, he noticed me. I felt happy when he did! So... I won't allow him to go through with this.

I drag him through the hallway by his right arm, but he tries to dig his feet into the floor. I am weak, having had almost no physical activity before, and he easily breaks free.

"...What do you care, anyways?"

I don't know why. Why did I care? This person never spoke to me before, on a casual level. We never said 'hi', we never joked or laughed or chatted. We were just... there. But, whether I knew this person or not, my concious would be severely invaded if I had let him do this to himself.

"I don't know... But... This is wrong... You shouldn't do this! You can't... I won't let you." I say. I have no logic behind my words, but I say whatever makes sense at the moment. The boy looks me in the eye, and I don't have the energy to turn away from his gaze. His gaze is stunning, really. He isn't sad, he isn't happy. He's indifferent to the world as it is, and he won't share his indifference aloud. "Come back... It's still not too late." I tell him. The boy hesitates before he nods his head ever so slightly.

"...If you say so."

I let go of his hand, and he hides the scissors behind a table in the hallway. I wait for him to catch up to me, and we walk back. We don't say anything, and we aren't walking side to side. He walks behind me, and I don't turn to look back. Was this guy crazy? Or just going through hard times? Would he hurt me if I made a wrong action? I don't know. But right now, I just saved another life from an untimely end.

I lead him to the cot room, and there is only one cot left. We turn to each other, and at the same time, we both say, "Go ahead."

I shake my head no, and say, "No, really, go ahead." He doesn't accept my permission and revolves the offer right back to me.

"It's fine. I'm not tired, anyways. I probably will stay awake. You need sleep." he says. I finally decide that he isn't going to give up until I lie down on the cot, so I affirm it with him.

"...Are you sure?" I ask, in case he might take up the offer.

"Yes." He then walks away to the back corner of the room, not looking back to me.

I decide to lie down on the cot, slowly, as not to make a creaking noise. I eventually am safe on the cot, and turn around in it to find a comfortable position to sleep in. I pull the thin blanket up to my neck, lying on my back to see the ceiling. I see a spider make its way across the wooden planks on the surface, and squirm a little. I sure hope it doesn't come near me... I decide to recap about everything today. Memories of today haunt me, as I wince at the thoughts that the boy was going to kill himself... How horrible...

I shudder as I pull up my left arm to my face, and notice something I hadn't before.

There was something caking the outside of my arm, but only a small amount of it. It was a half liquid, half solid type of thing. I look at it closer and realize it was blood. Was I bleeding? Did I accidentally scrape my arm against something? I fear the sight of blood, although not nearly as much as I fear spiders. I feel around for a scape or some sort of pain, but I don't feel anything. Was this... the blood of that boy? Was I too late to prevent him from cutting? I frown as I feel emotions of guilt. I was too late. But then, the voice I fear begins to speak to me.

_ You came just in time. You weren't late at all. _

_But, he cut himself! If I came sooner, he wouldn't have done this... _

_That may be so, but imagine if you didn't come for him at all. What if you just left him there, to take his own life with his own hands? His body to be found the next morning? _

_If I... just... left him there.... !! _

My mind is feeling like it's being torn in two. I begin to cry. Suicide. Would I ever be brave enough for that? No... There was no such thing as bravery in suicide. Only cowardliness. Was I... enough of a coward for suicide?

**_No. Not yet._**

**_My life isn't the worst. Somewhere out there, there is someone who is enduring ten times my pain. Somewhere out there, someone is more of a coward than I am. I'm not the bottom of the food chain quite yet..._**

I am near ready to fall asleep, when I hear the sound of papers shuffling in the room. I open my eyes, but I don't move. I take a glance around the room, my eyes landing on the back corner. The boy was digging through his secret hiding spot, pulling out an object. What was it? Let's see... It could either be the pictures, or the diary... I turn over to my side, and the cot creaks. I realize that I might have accidentally confirmed that I was still awake to the boy, but he doesn't look up. I give a mental sigh before I continue to watch him. Just as I decide he's just digging through it for old time's sake, the spider from before climbs its way up my pillow. My eyes widen as I try to silently blow it away, but the only thing this does is make it run closer to my arm. I give a small yelp before I jump a little. I brush it off of my bed by thrashing the pillow a little, and then I realize what I have just done.

The boy looks right at me, his eyes wide and alert as always.

**_Oops._**

I can't sleep, and he seems to notice my feelings.

He beckons me over with his left arm, using a sort of backwards wave movement to summon me. He then puts a finger to his lips to represent 'Be quiet'.

I slip out of the cot with no difficulties and tip-toe my way over to the back corner. I kneel down next to him, waiting for him to speak.

"You were in here, weren't you?" the boy tells me.

"...No." I deny. I know all to well that I had, in fact, snooped, and he seems to know it as well.

"I saw you in the room with me earlier today. You were in here." _So, he did notice me..._

"Why... didn't you say anything? Why didn't you leave?"

"Because the room was as empty as it ever was going to get at the time." He did have a point. This room was our bedroom, our lounge, and our hangout. Whenever the kids weren't eating or bathing, they were in here. It was rare for it to be desolate.

"Besides," he continues, "You have no one to tell." True. So very true. Who would I tell? Who would listen to me? I'm just a lowly Diclonius girl. I muster up strength to talk to him.

"Okay... I did come through here. I was just curious. I didn't read your diary, though."

"Oh... Good." he sighs. I decide not to bring up the whole cutting thing, as he seemed to be over it, now. It's best to leave a forgotten war behind, as it's still fresh on the mind, as the old saying goes.

An awkward silence fills the air as he writes in his diary, and I'm left sitting there alongside him.

"..."

"..."

"Say... What... What is your name?" I finally ask.

"Minoru." the boy tells me calmly.

"Minoru, what?" I ask, implying that I am looking for a last name as well.

"I don't have a last name, as far as I'm concerned." Minoru says sharply.

No last name, as far as he's concerned? Now, that didn't make much sense. I decide not to press it, though.

"Oh. Okay... My name's--"

"Lilith. I know." Minoru states in a whisper.

He noticed me? He knew my name? Was I the only person unfamiliar with the other? Then again, it is hard to miss a Diclonius. I stood out like a fire truck on the road, here.

"...Minoru... Why are you here?"

"I'm entering a page in the diary." he states.

"No... I mean... Why... are you in the orphanage, Minoru? There's got to be something."

"My parents left me behind. They had 8 children, and decided they had to give a few of them up for financial reasons." So, that's why he was here. His parents left.

"Oh... So, they left you here?"

_I confirm. I then wish I hadn't._

"Not exactly." he says, closing the journal, his voice lowering an octave.

"Not... exactly?" I press.

"They tried to kill me first." I gasp. They tried to... kill... him?! Why didn' t they just give him up? Why couldn't they just leave him be?

"They didn't plan to give me up to the orphanage anytime soon. It was three years ago. I still remember it. They were crazy. They had too many kids, and it drove them nuts. One day, I come home from school, and I find three of my siblings, dead. The younger ones, because the kindergarten let out early." he said, tears running down his eyes.

"-!!" I feel like I am about to puke. I gag in my mouth a little. His parents... They killed... innocent children?! Sick, sick humans! Disgusting! How dare they?! I hate his parents, and I didn't even know them.

"They went for me next, but I was too fast for them. I ran out the front yard, across the street, and yelled for help. I was screaming at the top of my lungs for someone, anyone to help. And, a neighbor heard and brought out his shotgun. It scared my parents away, as they were not carrying firearms. They only had the knife. He called the cops, and from there, I was separated from my other three siblings. They were sent to foster homes, and I got sent here."

_My stomach sinks._

_This is the person._

_This is the person out there, who has it worse than I do. My life, my experiences, they are nothing on this kid._

I begin to cry like a madman, tears stream down my face. Minoru looks at me and doesn't know how to react, so he hesitantly raises his hand to my back. He tries to comfort me, but he isn't quite sure how to. Unfamiliar with people, he is? I suspect so.

He eventually pulls me into a hug, and we cry together, as I tell him my life story, and how I came to terms with this hell of an orphanage. We confide in each other. We just met, but I finally feel like I know this person as if he were my own self, and I can tell he feels the same way.

**He listens about how I tell him how I felt about everything.**

_How I lived with no daylight with my parents._

_How I had a childhood crush on a family friend, Brendan._

_How he went out of his way, lost his job and his reputation, all for me._

_How I saw death through my own eyes._

_How I got dragged out of that home._

_How I got pulled by the arm into the court, and was sentenced to the Diclonius institution._

_How lawyers fought, saying I didn't threaten anyone._

_How after a full month of courts, day in and day out, I was allowed into society, but with very close eyes on me, always._

One false step, and I would be killed.

It would only take the tiniest of threats to fall from my mouth in order for me to be sent to the instituion, where go knows what happens there to my kind.

**_Minoru..._**

**_I don't know your way, but are we the only ones for each other?  
Will you free my heart, hold my hand, and be my older brother?_**

**_I want to help you._**

**_I want you to help me._**

**_Someday we'll run away..._**

**_and we'll both be free._**

**_

* * *

_**

**_AN/ Thank you for reading, sorry to have to present you with such a low-bringing chapter. Does anyone reading this think that Lilith is a Mary-Sue type of character? Please tell me how I can flesh her out a bit more, I am writing at 2:06 am as always, and therefore, I tend to turn a blind eye on writing emotion. Since I write in mornings, I'm more suited to write my humor stories, where you can leave anything out and it still makes sense._**

**_Thanks for your time!_**

**_OSPancake  
_**


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